Sarah Shahi was born in Grapevine, Texas on January 1980, two years after her family left her native Iran, due the 1979 Islamic Revolution. As her last name "Shahi" suggests, she is a descendent of Fath Ali Shah of the Qajar Dynasty, who ruled Iran from 1797 to 1834. Shahi combines beauty with intelligence, as she is bilingual in English and Persian, studied science and was a member of the National Honor Society. While studying at The Southern Methodist University, she became a cheerleader for the Dallas Cowboys for the years, 1999-2000. During her cheerleading experience, she graced the covers of the Dallas Cowboy Cheerleaders Calendar and of Muscle and Fitness Magazine. She even travelled to the troubled Balkans in January 2000, as part of a USO tour to perform for US soldiers engaged in operations in Kosovo. She guest starred on episodes of Maybe It's Me, and Spin City and regularly guest stars as Jenny on the ABC show Alias. Asked what her great ancestor Fath Ali Shah would have thought of her career, she said, "I think he'd probably be pleased and happy of the advancements I have made." Her fans would agree.moreless

Quotes (17)

Sarah: (on searching online new about herself) I've done it a few times. I'm guilty. My mom's really bad at it. My mom has these google alerts for me, so anytime something happens, she sends it right over to me and is like, 'You and your husband are broken up? You're leaving your family and moving to Canada?!' And I go, 'No, mother, no! Stop!' But anyway, I've googled myself, but it doesn't mean anything. The good stuff, the bad stuff, it's all meaningless to me.

Sarah: (on filming the TV series Person of Interest) I talked to Tony Shaloub once about it and he said it's like being in a factory, just churning out this product. He said you've got to keep your head down and keep running, and every once in a while you can bring your head up for air, but not too long, because then you've got to right back down again.

Sarah: (on her background) My great-great-grandfather was a shah back in the 1800s. Unfortunately, I don't have any gold coins or jewels to show for it. I did a lot of theater growing up, and in college I was in the musical 'Chicago.'

Sarah: (on her mother being a single mother) My mother raised three kids on her own, so I was taught that to be a working mom was a good thing.

Sarah: (on being a NFL cheerleader) NFL cheerleading is harder than most people think. They train up to six hours every day with games on Sundays. They gave me a great work ethic.